So it’s official – Black people are superhuman – they possess inconceivable abilities that give them super-duper powers beyond reason. Sounds crazy? Not according to a documented thesis that was recently published by Social Psychological and Personality Science. Based on the results of the research that was conducted, whites have a weird tendency to think that Blacks are capable of performing outside the realm of human capabilities. Black people are also apparently composed of “superhuman skin that is thick enough to withstand the pain of burning hot coals”. And it doesn’t end there. There is also a supernatural element that gives Blacks the strength to function like super heroes – so if God Forbid someone is stuck under a tank, a Black person is more likely to be able to lift the bugger up and save the day. Whites also assigned Blacks the ability to “read a person’s mind by touching the person’s head”.

The present research provides the first systematic empirical investigation into superhumanization, the attribution of supernatural, extrasensory, and magical mental and physical qualities to humans. Five studies test and support the hypothesis that White Americans superhumanize Black people relative to White people. Studies 1–2b demonstrate this phenomenon at an implicit level, showing that Whites preferentially associate Blacks versus Whites with superhuman versus human words on an implicit association test and on a categorization task. Studies 3–4 demonstrate this phenomenon at an explicit level, showing that Whites preferentially attribute superhuman capacities to Blacks versus Whites, and Study 4 specifically shows that superhumanization of Blacks predicts denial of pain to Black versus White targets. Together, these studies demonstrate a novel and potentially detrimental process through which Whites perceive Blacks.

As disturbingly comical as these findings are, it is not all together surprising when you consider the stereotypes that have plagued Black men in particular when it comes to their physical attributes. The periods of slavery also helped to propel the notion that Black people could be subjected to inhuman treatment and bear it without breaking a sweat. That damaging sentiment is also responsible for the present climate that is rife with racial tensions due to the crippling number of young Black men being unfairly brutalized by a system that was designed to protect to them.

The researchers also pointed out that the “superhuman assignment” has also been applicable to Asians, who have always been deemed as superiority intelligent compared to other races.

Either way, the idea that words like “mystical”, “magic” and “wizard” were associated with Blacks, is impressive yet frightfully damaging at the same time. It proves that the gap between Blacks and whites is consistently widening at a rapid pace.

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I don’t know if I like this……this reeks of some type of study that could be used in a negative way at a later date. I don’t need anyone trying to test any of these theories.

Jo ‘Mama’ Besser

I’d go with ‘don’t’. There’s a pervasive idea that Black people not only endure difficulty, but thrive on it. You don’t have to worry ’bout Mama in the ghetto, this is what makes her makes her the sassy strong den mother mammy that she is, and struggle is what makes her ‘real’. Poverty and burden are so central to the popular conception of the Black Woman, that to take those things away would almost nullify her existence within that viewpoint. If she’s not forged in the fire to become a ‘A Woman Who KNOWS…Mmm-hmmm!’, or carrying the ‘I Am/Was Poor, And/But Proud banner, what’s left to identify her? And if these are the things upon which her identity is founded, who are we to take that from her? All of that hardship gives her insight, insight that we want, but don’t want to earn. But it’s a symbiotic relationship: we get all of the wisdom and pride that we can suck out of her, and she gets to fulfill her ‘making lemonade from lemons and then giving the lemonade away’ purpose. Everybody wins, except her, but losing is winning in her world, so keep dumping.

Being superhuman may sound better than subhuman, but it all equates to being seen as outside of, and in no need of humanity.

PlantinMoretus

I can see this. A Black woman can’t just be like an HR manager picking up her dry cleaning on her way home to watch some Netflix, she has to be a SURVIVOR all the time.

Jo ‘Mama’ Besser

Exactly. I don’t know how people square this with the ‘post-racial’ and the ‘Affirmative Action is harming the people we’ve been too lazy to research, who are the recipients of its benefits, wouldn’t you know, but come on, Black people are leeches anyway, so can you blame us for assuming? You know what? Forget it, just say it’s them, anyway’, gobbledygook.

Mary Burrell

Wasn’t it during the Depression era when the stockmarket crashed many were jumping out of windows committing suicide. If they(privileged whites) had to switch places with poor marginalized people of color they would not be able to tolerate that. Blacks are a resilient people. Our ancestors endured much mistreatment and lived through this. That’s just how remarkable our people are. If that’s what they mean by magical.

Jo Ca

white people produce most of what we term “modern society.” The fact that
this might be the result of organic factors and not culturally created
is unspoken as it is politically unacceptable. Yes, black people were dragged here in chains and forced into servitude.
The “evil white man” bought those black people… from… wait for
it… other black people! Those ancestral progenitors of the modern
black man would have been slaves anyway, surprisingly enough.

This racism crap is really starting to make me sick. Stop waving the
fucking race card whenever you feel like you’re not out in front of the
rest of us rats in this race. You can’t coast on your
great-great-great-grandpappy’s enforced lack of achievement forever.

Actually, it is behavioral differences between the races that account for the high number of
blacks
in jail. Low-impulse control, An aversion to saving money for the
future (poor future-time orientation). A toxic level of self-esteem
(hence, the high frequency of respect killings

Though certain black individuals can achieve the cultural standards set by whites,
collectively, blacks have one-standard deviation lower IQ than whites.

DestryDanger

You’re a terrible person, Jo.

Guest

So why do black people from Africa attempt to cross the Mediterranean on
rusty boats that very often sink on the way over, just so they can make
it into Europe? Why would those black people rather live in Europe
amongst white people over their fellow black people in Africa? Please
explain.

Mary Burrell

This is kind of creepy and disturbing and kind of stupid.

Khaijg

Let them continue to believe that. Honestly we are. Surely a comparison to how whites deals with struggle and controversy, minus of course any mental illness in either race, but with rationale, normal thinking and behaving people, would likely find that when faced with the same set of negative circumstances, blacks overwhelmingly deal with problems in a much more rationale and controlled manner than that of their white counterparts. I would also venture to say that this points to why we are feared and hated so much because of our refusal to just go away and to be eliminated and destroyed as they would have it has to be frustrating. I mean when you have systematically implemented policies, laws, a justice system, the social and economic framework, mental and physical barriers specifically designed to underestimate, undervalue and marginalize as Joe Madison would say, then there really is now wonder some presumed super heroism lives within us. What they don’t realize is that we were created to remind them that their “power” is limited and that as long as we exist their own wicked pasts will never be forgotten or erased.